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Stream the Oculus Connect Keynotes Live, Right Here

Oculus Connect, the virtual-reality company’s developer summit, is now in its second year. But it’s also the last one before the 2016 release of the Oculus Rift, and we’re expecting the company to finally pull back the curtain in some very real ways. If you’d like to follow along, the keynote addresses this morning will be streaming live on Twitch. Take heed: this may be your last chance to enjoy it in real life before we’re all conscripted into the Matrix!

Here’s What Happens When You Ask Siri for a Hint

Apple’s September 9 invites are out, and as per usual, the Cupertino company is teasing us with a sort of-clue. The “Hey Siri, give us a hint” line likely points toward something to do with voice activation. But instead of just guessing, why not just ask Siri that exact question, right?

So we did, and here’s the response.

Molly McHugh

How rude.

This isn’t her only answer, though. Siri has plenty of lip for anyone asking what’s happening September 9.

Confirmed: Apple’s Next iPhone Event is September 9

Apple

It’s official: Wednesday (not Tuesday!) September 9 is the Apple event. Things kick off at 10am at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, a cavernous venue in SF’s city center that holds thousands of people. WIRED will be there—albeit somewhat begrudgingly because c’mon, that’s the Wednesday after Labor Day Weekend! We’re supposed to ease out of vacation mode, right?

We’re of course expecting the next iPhone. But that invitation graphic hints at something larger, too. Here are some Hipchat-crowdsourced guesses as to what the image could be hinting at:

• “What if the iPhone 6 is just a microphone?”
• Apple TV voice control
• Footballs in the ocean
• Almonds
• An Apple-branded Nexus Q

Sprint Kills the Two-Year Contract

Earlier this month, Verizon joined the ranks of T-Mobile by giving up selling two-year contracts, and now Sprint will do the same. Instead of locking customers into two-year contracts, Sprint will keep service and data plans on a month-to-month basis. This is meant to supplement their new iPhone Forever plan, in which customers lease their iPhones and pay a monthly fee of $22 in addition to paying for data. If customers stick to the iPhone Forever plan, they’ll be able to upgrade to the latest iPhone when it becomes available. Last year, Sprint began offering a cellphone lease option, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint says 51 percent of customers bought a new phone last year using this option. The iPhone Forever program is likely a reaction to the success of its leasing program.

Two-year contracts have appealed to customers because they offer the option to upgrade to a new phone at the beginning of a contract. But as companies phase out these contracts, the way people buy new phones may also change. With Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile getting rid of their contracts, AT&T is the only major U.S. carrier that will offer smartphone upgrades every two years. Whether or not AT&T will follow this trend is yet to be seen, but chances are it isn’t far behind.

Meet MIT’s Beer Delivery Bots

It’s a stereotype that college students spend all day drinking, and a couple of engineers at MIT have taken it to heart. The researchers have developed an algorithm called MacDec-POMDP (a terrible name) that allows their beer-fetching TurtleBots (a great name) to reason on their own in lieu of immediate instructions. If you like robot videos that are completely silent, take a look.

When someone places an order, the TurtleBots will be given the command to pick up, then drop off that beer. While the end goal is clear, the robots will have to accomplish this feat by using methods appropriate to each situation. If there is any uncertainty in how to complete the task, the robots will have to internally go through a series of options to figure out how to get the job done.

Another interesting thing that you may have noticed in the video was that if an engineer does not take their beer from the TurtleBot, the robot will bring the beer to the next person who ordered one. This involves the two TurtleBots communicating with each other to determine which one is completing what task and what to do next—thus preventing the robots from crashing into each other and causing a hilarious robo pile up. While the real-world application of this research may seem like the beer fetching itself (to us at least), the method that allows robots to execute tasks despite uncertainty may have practical usages.

What the robots can’t do, however, is tell you when you’ve had enough to drink.

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Chromebooks have made huge inroads in education—Google says they’re the best-selling computers in U.S. schools—and now the company is making a push into the office. Today it’s announcing a suite of new enhancements designed to make it easier to use Chrome OS at work.

These new tools make fleets of Chromebooks easier to manage, set up, and update. And there are new visualization features, so you can use legacy Windows apps if you need them. Google’s partnering with VPN companies, making printing easier, and making sure you can connect to all your networks no matter where you are.

Business is a hard nut to crack, and even Google admits this is just the first step down the road. The most immediately great new thing is the new Dell Chromebook 13, which occupies a virtually uncharted space in the Chrome OS universe: the mid-range. Starting at $399 and configurable up to $899, the Chromebook 13 has a 13.3-inch, 1080p screen, along with Intel’s Core i5 processor, and a dark gray magnesium-alloy body that looks and feels a lot better than your average bargain-basement Chromebook. It has a good, full-sized, backlit keyboard, and a very usable trackpad. Its battery should last 12 hours, a fact both Google and Dell executives proudly touted. It’s not quite the beauty the Chromebook Pixel is, but it looks very much like a computer you wouldn’t mind using. All for a third of the Pixel’s asking price.

It’ll be available September 17, and while Google might call it “a Chromebook for work,” the Dell Chromebook 13 appears to just be an awesome Chromebook for anyone.

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How many times have you want to boot up your Google Cardboard for some sweet VR action but that whole holding it thing got in the way? Well thankfully, there’s this new device from Hands Free Headgear that turns your head into a mount for any Google Cardboard viewer. It’s essentially the bones of a helmet that has been simplified to instead support and house your VR device.

It’s not the first time an incredibly simple solution has been made related to technology and cardboard, of course.

Look at This Insane Baby Stroller

Kim Hyeonseok

Baby strollers have evolved over time to look less like quaint prams and more like high-performance sporting equipment. One over-the-top model even has an LCD screen, headlights, and a built-in phone charger.

But even that specimen can’t compete with the Strollever, a new carriage design that looks like it would be more at home in a NASA lab than on a shelf at REI. This thing resembles a small rocketship, or even one of Google’s cute self-driving cars.

Specs are scant, but Strollever was designed by Kim Hyeonseok (who’s also designed a futuristic toilet) and its marquee feature is a gyroscope suspension system. Sensors on the wheels detect rocky terrain, and the stroller auto-adjusts its suspension so any roadbumps you might hit don’t upset the dozing tot within. Your baby will stay asleep, blissfully ignorant, while you’re stuck pushing a spaceship on wheels, explaining yourself to your neighbors.

The baby windshield is made of UV-resistant glass and provides additional protection against the elements. The stroller also has forward-facing headlamps and additional storage in the base. No details yet on when or where the Jetson-ian Strollever will be available.

Garmin Releases a New $170 GPS Running Watch

Garmin

Garmin’s Forerunner line of GPS running watches is vast—there are ten different models to choose from, all with varying features and abilities. Now there’s one more.

Today, Garmin announced the Forerunner 25. It’s a relatively low-priced model (for GPS sports watches, anyway) that retails for $170. It doesn’t do wrist-based heart-rate sensing like the more expensive Forerunner watches, but if you spend an extra $30, you can get a Forerunner 25 bundled with a strap-on heart-rate monitor.

The watch tracks distance traveled, heart-rate, and your pace while you’re out on a run. The GPS sensor tracks your route so you can see it on a map later. When you’re not out running, it functions like a standard smart watch and activity tracker, counting your steps and calories burned throughout the day. Pair it to your phone over Bluetooth LE, and you can not only sync all your fitness data, but you can get alerts for incoming calls, text messages, and emails.

There are two different sizes available and a number of color combos. Depending on the size of the watch, the battery lasts eight to ten hours in GPS mode, and eight to ten weeks in the watch/fitness-tracking mode.

GoPro Spherical Gives You Eyes All Over

In case ultra-high definition video wasn’t enough to impress you, GoPro’s now letting you view those videos in 360 degrees. After announcing a partnership with Google Jump at the I/O developer conference, GoPro has now teamed up with Kolor to bring a different kind of immersive viewing experience called GoPro Spherical.

GoPro uses Kolor’s image-stitching technology to surround the viewer with footage from multiple cameras, creating a virtual reality experience you can navigate by moving your head—or your mouse and keyboard. If you have a couple of spare GoPros, you can actually purchase the mount and start making spherical videos right now. And if you happen to have a spare racehorse, you can make a video like this one.

Show Your Support For Cecil The Lion… With a $2,500 Phone?

Goldgenie

So there’s this company in London called Goldgenie. Guess what it does? It makes gold things. Its latest gold thing is a 24-karat gold HTC One M9, with a laser engraving of Cecil the Lion, who was killed in Zimbabwe earlier this week. The caption underneath: “For Cecil and His Kingdom.” It’s a way to show your incredible wealth. Wait, no, I mean lack of taste. Shoot, I meant to say support.

Some quick back-o’-the-napkin math: The phone costs £1,580.83, which amounts to $2,469.97. The One M9, unlocked—which, let’s remember, ALSO COMES IN GOLD—costs $650 or so. That’s an $1,800 show of support, all of which goes to Goldgenie. But there’s good news! 10 percent of proceeds go to a charity supporting the park Cecil lived in. (That amounts to $247, roughly.) So I guess you could buy this and that’d be nice. Or, of course, you could just buy an M9 and then give seven times as much to charity. But that’s up to you.

Nvidia Recalls Its Shield Tablets Due to Fire Hazard

NVIDIA

If you bought one of Nvidia’s 8-inch Shield tablets between July 2014 and July 2015, the company wants to replace it for free. According to a statement sent out today, the batteries inside the mobile Android gaming devices can overheat and cause fires. Uh oh. Visit this website to check if your tablet is one of the bad ones, and if so, to get instructions on how to send it in. Nvidia says this problem doesn’t affect any other of its products.

New Android Tablets from Samsung

The new Galaxy Tab S2 will be on sale in August. Samsung

The new Galaxy Tab S2 comes in two sizes: 9.7 inches and 8 inches. Both versions have AMOLED screens, and the bigger one has a resolution of 2048×1536. They’ve got quad-core processors up to 1.9GHz and storage up to 64GB internal, plus microSD slots for more. The frames on these are metal, quite attractive, and very very thin. It’s a bit of a shame they’re so close together in size—it would be nicer if the smaller one was seven inches instead of eight. Alas. The S2 tablets will be on sale in August.

This Turntable for Audio and Design Snobs Weighs 100 Pounds

Fern & Roby

Take a gander at your audio equipment. Those fancy Grado cans aside, between your earbuds, Bluetooth on-the-go speaker, phone, and computer, there’s probably a lot of plastic and silicone in your backpack. That’s for the best: those materials are lightweight and can really perform against wind, rain, and sweat.

Turntables are different. They’re stationary, more like a hearth than a beach companion. They don’t need to be waterproof, mobile, or light. And the playback demands are entirely different. That affords plenty of design freedom, which Fern & Roby, a team of craftsman and hardware makers in Richmond, Virginia, have thoroughly exercised. This turntable of theirs—simply referred to as The Turntable—is built from cast iron, bronze, and heart pine wood. It weighs 100 pounds. At a glance, it looks like a brutalist, steampunk-y sculpture.

It’s also a high-fidelity machine. The product specifications are laced with a lot of insider audio jargon, but the gist is such: the heft of a rock-steady 70-pound cast iron plinth and 35-pound bronze platter, coupled with an optical sensor feedback system controlling the platter speed makes this baby a bit of analog audio nirvana. This all comes at a considerable price: The Turntable costs $4,500—before choosing your custom tone arms and cartridges.

A Simple Design Change Makes These Sonos Speakers Way More Versatile

Sonos

Sonos makes objectively lovely speakers. But even the most compact, affordable, and unobtrusive model, the $199 Play:1, looks like what it is—a piece of consumer electronics. It comes in black or white with a metallic-gray grill, like just about every other tech gadget. But soon and for a limited time it will come in pristine white and murdered-out black.

It’s a subtle—and subtly ingenious—move by the wireless-speaker maker. Because by coating the speakers entirely in a white or black matte finish (grill included), Sonos has vastly changed the look and feel of its Play:1 into a neutral, sculptural object that can fit into almost any interior space—a smart marketing strategy for Sonos, whose mission is to install a speaker in every room, whether it be furnished in midcentury modern or American colonial.

But it’s also a lesson in the power of design to change the attitude of an product, even if, as in this case, it’s an exercise in re-skinning. Dipped in all-white or -black, the Play:1’s grill look more like a textile than metal, and the soft-touch coating feels like a matte glaze on porcelain. “It’s a little less consumer electronic,” says Tad Toulis, Sonos’ VP of product development. “It begins to feel a little more like a vase or a piece of ceramica.” In keeping with the design’s lower profile, even the logo has been toned down to be, according to Toulis, “subtle enough that it can be seen but not so subtle that’s invisible.”

As with any Play:1, the limited editions have two custom drivers with dedicated amplifiers, but you’ll pay a slight premium for the new design—$250. Only 5,000 will be available on Sonos.com, starting Tuesday, July 21, at 10 a.m. CET for European buyers and 10 a.m. PT for U.S. and Canadian customers.